In the present paper, the theory of generalized photo-thermoelasticity under fractional order derivative was used to study the coupled of thermal, plasma, and elastic waves on unbounded semiconductor medium with a cylindrical hole during the photo-thermoelastic process. The bounding surface of the cavity was traction free and loaded thermally by exponentially decaying pulse boundary heat flux. The medium was considered to be a semiconductor medium homogeneous, and isotropic. In addition, the elastic and thermal properties were considered without neglecting the coupling between the waves due to thermal, plasma and elastic conditions. Laplace transform techniques were used to obtain the exact solution of the problem in the transformed domain by the eigenvalue approach and the inversion of Laplace transforms were carried out numerically. The results were displayed graphically to estimate the effect of the thermal relaxation time and the fractional order parameters on the plasma, thermal and elastic waves.

In this paper, the edgewise and flatwise compressive behaviour of an innovative sandwich panel, mainly developed for quick assembly of post-disaster housing as well as load bearing panels for pre-fabricated modular construction and semi-permanent buildings, is investigated experimentally and by finite element modelling. The panel is composed of two 3-D high-density polyethylene (HDPE) sheets as the skins, filled with high-density Polyurethane (PU) foam as the core. HDPE sheets manufactured with a studded surface considerably enhance the stress distribution and buckling performance of the sandwich panel. Material characterisation tests and flatwise compression and edgewise compression experiments were performed in accordance with ASTM standards to evaluate the compressive strength and the load-carrying behaviour of the sandwich panels. A finite element analysis and validation were also conducted to model the compressive behaviour of sandwich structures. Results demonstrate that the developed sandwich panel exhibits very good compressive performance.

Most of the supply chain models have been developed under symmetric information structure i.e. players have complete knowledge of each other’s policies. But in most of the cases, players do not have complete information about the other players i.e. some information regarding their businesses is hidden. This paper studies supply chain model of imperfect quality items under asymmetric information in which unit price taken by the buyer and unit marketing expenditure are influencing product’s demand. This information is hidden to seller. The seller delivers the supply to the buyer. Each delivered lot goes through an inspection process at the buyer’s side. In the inspection process, the items are divided into two categories. The first category is perfect quality items while the second category is of imperfect quality items. After the inspecting the lots, the perfect quality commodities are to be sold at selling price and the imperfect items are supposed to get sold at a discounted price. The interaction between two constituents of the supply chain is modeled by non-cooperative Seller Stackelberg game approach in which the role of leader is played by the seller while the role of follower is played by the buyer. In our proposed model, the seller does not have information related to market demand but the buyer does. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis explain the significance of the theory.

In this paper, we design a revenue sharing contract to coordinate pricing and inventory control decisions in a serial supply chain consisting of one supplier, one manufacturer and one retailer. We assume that the retailer faces Poisson demand and his unsatisfied demands will be lost. The retailer applies one-for-one period policy in which he constantly places an order for one unit of product to the manufacturer in a predetermined time interval which results in a deterministic demand for the manufacturer. Solution procedures are developed to find the equilibrium in the Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) program with a revenue sharing contract, in which no party is willing to deviate from for the sake of maximizing his own profit. Furthermore, we formulate the total profit of the system and obtain the optimal retail price and order cycle for the retailer and the inventory policy of manufacturer which maximizes the supply chain’s total profit and at the end we will highlight the revenue sharing contract performance.

Vendor managed inventory system is vendor centric inventory system in which all inventory decisions are taken by vendor rather than buyer. This study considers non-instantaneous deteriorating items with generalized type time dependent deterioration rate when demand rate is quadratic function of time and shortages are allowed with partial backlogging. The paper aims to compare traditional inventory system and vendor managed inventory system by analyzing total cost function. To validate the model, numerical example and sensitivity analysis are performed. The analysis shows that vendor managed inventory is more beneficial compare with the traditional inventory system.

This paper illustrates an innovative manufacturing procedure for producing handcrafted interlocking stabilized compressed earth blocks (ISCEBs). A comparison of the mechanical properties of ISCEBs is conducted to assess the influence of varying components. The ISCEBs are manufactured by employing different block densities with three distinct mixtures (earth, earth and lime, earth and straw) and by using a human-powered machine named Float RAM 1.0 Press. The manual press was conceived for regions with limited access to technology and allows the production of interlocking blocks via two modes of compaction: mono-directional and bi-directional. A production average of approximately 30 blocks/hour corresponding to the work of three people is achieved. Three-point bending tests and uniaxial compression tests are carried out to investigate the ISCEB mechanical behaviour. The improvements obtained by incorporating additives into the subset of ISCEBs made from a pure earth mixture are tested. The aim of this work is to identify, for this specific technology, the relationship between production parameters and the consequent behaviour of different stabilization methods. A correlation is found between the compaction force and the compression strength of ISCEBs. The addition of lime increases strength and causes the blocks to exhibit a brittle behaviour. Moreover, the incorporation of straw fibres improves the tensile strength and ductility without significantly affecting the compression strength of the blocks. Energy-based parameters are obtained for all the tests, allowing the assessment of the ISCEB mechanical and dissipation properties.

Simulation and visualization of the mechanical components have become a predominant phase during the design and the production stages. Several means are used to improve the design and to reduce study time. Today, the powerful hardware and the software available on the market have contributed greatly on the improvement of design, visualization and manufacturing process of complex parts (turbine blade). In this context, our study is a contribution to the establishment of a methodology to a CAD modelling and finite element analysis, which allows us to identify the mechanical behavior of a gas turbine blade. The profile of the blade turbine model is obtained after regeneration using the CATIA V5R20 software from the retro-design technique using a FARO-type scanner. The turbine blade is analyzed under a static mechanical behavior. It has been observed that the maximum stresses and deformations are located in the vicinity of the root and the upper surface along the turbine blade. On the other hand, the elastic energy is located at a distance from the root of the turbine blade.

In this paper, an innovative and efficient sandwich panel is proposed for the structural walls for quickly assembled post-disaster housing, as well as load bearing panels for pre-fabricated modular construction and semi-permanent buildings. This study focuses on the flexural and shear behavior of the innovative sandwich panels, which is composed of two 3-D high density polyethylene (HDPE) skins, and high-density Polyurethane (PU) foam core. An experimental study was carried out to validate the effectiveness of this panel for increasing the ultimate bending strength. A series of experimental tests were performed on medium-scale specimens to characterize their core shear behavior. Then, some supplementary tests were run to determine the panels’ flexural and shear stiffness. The numerical and experimental investigations show that the 3-D-HDPE sheets, manufactured with a studded surface; considerably enhance the pull-out and delamination strength. Good agreement has been observed between the numerical and experimental tests.

This paper investigates the configuration of a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) network, which involves suppliers, a single manufacturer, customers, collection/disassembly centers, disposal centers, a single recovery center and subcontractors. Due to the importance of green issues in the proposed supply chain, the efforts mainly focus on the suitable parts that form more durable and more sustainable products, reduce costs and help the environmental protection. To do so, an integrated framework is introduced which consists of a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) method and a multi-objective mathematical model that determines the material flow in the dynamic consecutive time segments of the network. This flow consists of parts and products which pass through the extant or potential facilities so that ultimately organize a CLSC network. Thereafter, a numerical example is examined by the augmented ε-constraint method and the results are demonstrated in a specific time horizon as an efficient solution. The results show the effects of time horizon in finding different solutions for each time segment. Furthermore, it shows how subcontractors can facilitate the flow of materials.

The battery packs are one of the most vulnerable parts of satellites for damages induced by vibration and shock during launch process. This is due to their considerable weight which increases their susceptibility for structural damage and short connection. Therefore, the related components have to pass successfully ground dynamic and vibration tests in order to verify the dynamic design of such component and ensure the successful performance of a space mission. In this paper, first a new design is presented for a battery pack of a microsatellite and then the verification of designed and manufacturing pack is done by performing some vibration tests based on the European space standard (ECSS). It was shown that the designed battery pack which uses circular or radial type arrangement for the battery cell layout can suitably pass the mechanical vibration tests applied to the pack during the lunch.